Brazil Will Fight Amazon Deforestation

Brazil announced measures to fight Amazon deforestation Wednesday, days after researchers warned that development projects were destroying the rain forest at an increasing rate.

Environment Minister Marina Silva said the government will give Brazil's environmental protection agency Ibama $7 million to help it crack down on illegal deforestation by loggers and farmers.

The government also will create a working group with the participation of 11 ministries, among them Agriculture, Science and Technology, Transport and Defense, to develop effective long-term measures to stop deforestation.

The government is requiring that all infrastructure and land reform projects take environmental aspects into account to avoid further deforestation, said Ciro Gomes, minister of national Integration.

Experts say about 16 percent of Brazil's 1.6 million square miles of Amazon rain forest already have been destroyed. Many scientists believe the destruction is accelerating global warming.

Silva's announcement came nearly a week after Brazilian researchers said the rate of deforestation in Brazil's Amazon rain forests has increased sharply, as more farmers and ranchers clear jungle lands for crops and cattle.

Satellite data showed an estimated 10,190 square miles of Amazon forest vanished between August 2001 and August 2002, according to the institute. That represents a 40 percent increase from the same period ending in August 2001, when an estimated 7,266 square miles were cleared.

Silva conceded that the measures need time and are unlikely to slow down forest destruction this year.

In their search for new lands, cattle ranchers and farmers have been pushing into the northern regions of Mato Grosso state and southern Para state that used to be covered completely by Amazon forest or Savannah lands. Researchers also have blamed the ongoing paving of dirt roads for the deforestation.

"The numbers show clearly that the federal government has been incapable of stopping Amazon deforestation," said Paulo Adario of Greenpeace, which has warned that the Amazon rain forest will be wiped out in 80 years if deforestation at current rates continues.

The group has proposed more government controls to prevent deforestation, an expansion of anti-forest fire programs and the establishment of natural parks and extractive reserves _ in which only the extraction of forest products that grow back is allowed _ in all areas identified as prone to deforestation.